Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Scott Pruitt On Climate

37 Comments

I agree with Professor Curry that the media has distorted his statement beyond recognition (and I basically agree with his position, as does she). I also agree that this statement is nonsense:

The right’s refusal to accept the authority of climate science is of a piece with its rejection of mainstream media, academia, and government, the shared institutions and norms that bind us together and contain our political disputes.

The “authority of climate science.” Sorry, but “climate science” has no “authority” (no science does). It and its ignorant defenders have beclowned themselves.

[Update a few minutes later]

Related: A new paper says that only five out of thirty climate models can capture the Asia Pacific Oscillation. But sure, let’s use them as a basis to pauperize much of the world.

[Update a while later]

Oh, look, here’s some insanity from NBC News:

Pruitt’s view is at odds with 99.99 percent of climate scientists, according to peer-reviewed studies.

At least it’s precise, if not accurate.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Alabama Porkers

10 Comments

It’s not enough that they have to screw up human spaceflight; now they want to cripple ULA and military launch as well:

“The United States Government (USG) must have a hands-on, decision-making role… in any decision made by United Launch Alliance to down-select engines on its proposed Vulcan space launch system, especially where one of the technologies is unproven at the required size and power,” the letter states. “If ULA plans on requesting hundreds of millions of dollars from the USG for development of its launch vehicle and associated infrastructure, then it is not only appropriate but required that the USG have a significant role in the decision-making concerning the vehicle.” The letter then goes on to say the Air Force should not give any additional funding to ULA, other than for current launch vehicles, until the company provides “full access, oversight of, and approval rights over decision-making” in its choice of contractors for the engines on Vulcan

Vulcan, by definition, cannot use the AR1. It’s a methane vehicle. AR1 means continuing to use the Atlas V, which can’t compete with SpaceX (or Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn). This doesn’t hurt Blue Origin that much, because its main use for the BE-4 is for its own vehicle, but it would be devastating for ULA if they’re forced by politics to stick with an uncompetitive launch system to please the Alabama delegation.

Although both Rogers and Thornberry are members of the House Armed Services Committee, it is difficult to avoid ascribing at least some political motives to the letter. In January, Aerojet Rocketdyne said it would produce the AR1 rocket engine in Huntsville, Alabama, creating 100 new jobs near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Already, another Huntsville company, Dynetics, has become a subcontractor for the engine’s main propulsion system. (A spokesman for Rogers didn’t not reply to a request for comment).

Politics in space hardware procurement? Say it ain’t so!

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The IRS Non-Scandal

9 Comments

They’re still withholding 7000 documents that show how (as Koskinen himself admitted) they were targeting conservatives.

As I wrote on an email list this morning (in the context of Big Data, Facebook and government spying): “I’m much more worried (or at least was in the last administration) about being targeted as a “right-wing” (i.e., someone who is a classical liberal, and gives a s**t about the Constitution) rather than Islamic terrorist, if they’re looking through my contacts and statements. And I think that the previous administration was the worst since Woodrow Wilson in terms of targeting what it perceived to be its political enemies (including through the campaign…). I’d call it Nixonian, except Nixon didn’t get away with it.”

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“Biggest Jobs Gains In Years”

22 Comments

Yes, there is such a thing as an economic environment, and psychology. These are not “Obama’s jobs.”

When Obama came in, the Democrats had already had a jackboot on the neck of the economy since 2006 (including talking it down and things like Schumer helping start the bank runs), and when business (mainly small business) saw that Obama was going to be elected, they pulled in their horns to weather the storm that they hoped would last only four years. It turned out to be eight (though it was mitigated somewhat by the mid-term losses of the party of War On The Free-Market Economy). Despite Paul Krugman’s hilarious prediction, for which he should rightly be mocked until the end of time, the post-election market rally was because she lost, and this boom is part of that relief, despite Trump’s own anti-market instincts.

[Noon update]

Related: It’s an older piece, but Democrats can’t win until they recognize how terrible Obama’s economic policies were.

In other words, they can’t win.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Classic SLAPP

7 Comments

Popehat shows how this works. As he says, Colorado doesn’t have an anti-SLAPP law, but it may just get dismissed.

By the way, while I don’t generally discuss my own case, briefly, because he’s a public figure, if it ever actually gets to trial, he has to show that I acted “with malice.” Legally, what this means is that I had a “reckless disregard for the truth,” which means that I either knew what I was writing wasn’t true, or I didn’t care whether or not it was.

Whatever else you might think of him, you know who recklessly disregards the truth every day? Donald J. Trump. Though Barack Obama did it a lot, too, to cram ObamaCare down our throats (among many other things).

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Science And Policy

3 Comments

Words of wisdom from Daniel Sarewitz:

Whatever science you’re doing on a post-normal problem, it is always going to be incomplete, and it is always going to be subject to revision, and highly uncertain. It can be viewed from numerous scientific perspectives. So multiple scientific studies can come up with multiple results, so it leads to a profusion of truths that can be mobilized on behalf of different sets of values. Values and facts can pair up with each other in different ways.

One example I love is how everyone talks about how there’s a consensus on GMOs. Well there is consensus around a narrow part of the GMO issue, like there is a consensus around a narrow part of climate change. But the real problems have to do with the ‚what could be done?‘ questions. So for GMOs for example, when people say there is a consensus, what they mean is ‚we know they’re not a health risk‘. So I’ll accept it on health risk, I don’t have a problem with it. But then you say, ‚and we know that they’ll be an essential part of the economic future of Africa‘. Well, maybe that’s true — whose model are you using? What kind of data have you used to generate that? What are your assumptions? I mean anything dealing with projections of the future and claims about how the world is going to look, in a multi-variate, open system, are going to be subject to different people coming up with different claims and conclusions. And that’s exactly what happens.

And when you bring science into the political debate, you have to pick and choose which science you want to use. You have to match that with particular priorities about what policy problems you want to solve. I think science is really important, I think we want to be factual, I think we want to have a grip on reality and I think science can help us do that. But for problems where there are so many paths forward, so many competing values, the systems themselves are so complicated, I don’t think science is a privileged part of the solution.

…The post-normal science idea really does challenge the notion of science as a unitary thing that tells us what to do, PNS really says that we have to think of science in a different way in these contested contexts, and I don’t think most scientists want to go there. The deficit model puts them in charge: “we communicate the facts, you listen and take action.” So if the problem isn’t solved it’s not science’s problem. This is a self-serving superstition that the scientific community generally holds. And superstitions are hard to destabilize.

Over on Twitter, I’ve been having arguments with people about the proposed cut at the EPA, in which the budget for “protecting the climate,” is reduced to “only” $29M.

What in the hell does “protecting the climate” even mean?